CUBS, FOXES, AND VIXENS. 273 



are nine." He laughed, " nine, Wilkins ? " 

 " Yes, sir, I do believe there are nine." " Come 

 this way," says he, so we walked down the 

 lawn, and talked privately. 



" I knew you had been to the pit last night, 

 Wilkins," he began. " For I ran a reel of 

 dark cotton round it, and I have been down 

 there this morning, and found it broken, so I 

 knew you had been there by that.'' And that 

 is what made him half-an-hour late. 



In feeding the vixen and cubs at the earths^ 

 your aim should always be to prevent, as far as 

 possible, the vixen taking your game. Rats 

 are very good things to feed foxes on ; indeed, 

 some people say that a fox prefers this food to 

 any other, but I am not at all certain of that. 

 It may be that the fox finds a rat the easiest 

 animal to catch, for there is little doubt that a 

 rat caught in the open by a fox has not so good 

 a chance of escape as a rabbit. 



When feeding cubs it is better to lay the rats 

 about in different places : one here, another 

 there, and a third somewhere else. Should 

 you lay them all in a heap at the earths, the 



o 



